A Complete Explanation Of Everything

Quiet office today, so I'm mostly listening to:

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

Which is coming across as a nice mid-point between Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born. Mellow, tuneful, songs have probably a more cohesive structure than the last record but I kinda feel like something's been lost in the translation, it's perhaps too safe a record.




















Ann Scott - We're Smiling

Irish chanteuse's second outing and damn the cover photography if Ann isn't getting more beautiful by the day. In any case, the songs are similar disjointed paeans that follow the same style established on her 2004 opus, Poor Horse, which recently placed in the Top 100 Irish records in that weighty tome, Hot Press. A very solid sophmore effort which is bound to grow on one.

And finally...

Nina Hynes & The Husbands - Really Really Do

Nina's second full length album and her third full release, if you count the early mini album, Creation, which you have to really. It abandons the poppier wiles of Staros, her last record and goes for a more grouped family of tracks that play up the theme of the future, all understate and gloriously monotone with the occasional dance beat. It rather fails to kick out the jams in spectacular fashion, which, being long familiar with the Nina experience live, I'm desperate for her to do on a record but there are two further records up her sleeve due for release whenever funds allow. This is a nice stop gap but no breakthrough unfortunately for the Cinderalla of Ireland's indie music scene.